Novels for Political Junkies

If you enjoy novels with a political twist, here is a list of the best 50 novels for political junkies.

The top five are:

· Brave New World, Aldous Huxley: Aldous Huxley’s classic novel is set in a world where a global government limits procreation and forces its citizens into a cycle of endless economic consumption. A must-read for anyone interested in tales of the extent to which a body will go to control its subjects.

· 1984, George Orwell: Released in 1949, Orwell’s novel depicts a totalitarian society in which the government constantly revises historical records in order to appear blameless and correct. Chilling and ahead of its time.

· Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury: The controlling political system of Bradbury’s dystopia has outlawed reading and, by extension, free and critical thought. The novel revolves around the way people cede control of their lives to silent governing units.

· Blindness, Jose Saramago: Jose Saramago’s searing work won him the Nobel Prize for Literature. His novel deals with the citizens of an unnamed city as they succumb to a freak epidemic of global blindness. The splintered government quarantines more and more of the people as society devolves. A harrowing look at how oppressive systems exist on all levels.

· Seeing, Jose Saramago: The sequel to Blindness finds many of the same characters returning, this time for a more direct attack on corrupt politics. The populace casts blank ballots at an election to protest the government’s distance and detachment, spurring the government to greater heights of alienation and control.